DVD & BluRay

LIVING LionsGate, cert 12; Blu-ray

£14.99 & on Digital

It had to happen eventually. One of Britain’s most understated but never under-rated actors, Bill Nighy (pictured), was nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA for this melancholy drama.

He didn’t win either. Perhaps because Living - a re-imagining of Japanese classic Ikiru - was rolled over by more hyped titles, and the whims of judging panels. My guess is Nighy greeted disappointment with a shrug and a wry smile. The nominations made his point. He deserved to be in the running for his portrayal of a man crashing headlong into the brick wall of his mortality, even if it’s a subject we all evade.

Nighy’s bowler-hatted character Williams, is just another pen pusher in a council’s public works department in 1953’s grim postwar London. He’s an invisible character who catches the morning train to work, then catches it home again after yet another day of drudgery. He’s never made a positive impression on anybody.

But Williams’ life hits the buffers at speed when his doctor breaks the news he’s got only months to live. Gulp! Now he has a choice, crawl home and pull the duvet over his head, or get a grip and try to build some kind of positive legacy. Certainly, a drunken night at a seaside town with a local lad-about-town (Tom Burke AKA TV sleuth Strike) doesn’t cut it. Williams gets more out of pushing young colleague Margaret's (Aimee Lou Wood - BAFTA Rising Star nominee) campaign for a children's playground by slashing his department's redtape-stranglehold which is holding up the plans, delighting young mums in the process. A small triumph. But a positive little legacy nevertheless. I took my hat off in farewell to him.